Octopus Property, part of the Octopus Group, has announced the appointment of Matthew Pritchard to the role of head of structuring.

The move is linked to the firm’s ambition to be a multi-billion pound specialist lender.

He will report directly to CEO Mario Berti.

Pritchard, who has more than 23 years of experience in lending, fixed income and securitisation, will be responsible for attracting funding as part of Octopus Property’s desire to further grow the business’ residential, buy-to-let, bridging and commercial loan books through sourcing additional third party capital predominantly in the form of debt financing.

He joins Octopus Property from Man Global Private Markets where he spent six years as a portfolio manager and head of the European real estate debt investment team. During this time he was responsible for managing a real estate backed bond fund as well as launching, investing and managing European residential and commercial real estate private debt strategies.

Prior to his role at Man Global Private Markets, Pritchard spent four years at Depfa Bank as a team head responsible for providing asset management services in respect of a EUR 5bn structured bond portfolio, having previously held fixed income and securitisation related roles at Deutsche Bank, JP Morgan Chase and UBS.

Berti said: “Matthew’s proven track record in lending, fixed income and securitisation provides us with an opportunity to leverage his deep expertise of the sector to further enable our drive towards growing into a multi-billion pound specialist lender.

“We are fully confident in his ability to navigate the asset financing market and we believe his experience will be invaluable in enhancing our ability to source additional financing.

“We are excited to have him join our first class team and look forward to working with him to deliver on our target of becoming the leading provider of specialist finance in the UK.”

Pritchard added: “Octopus Property’s reputation as a leading and entrepreneurial performer in the market as well as its strong growth prospects made my decision to join the business an easy one.

“I am glad to have joined during this exciting period and I look forward to working with Mario and the team to help realise the business’ growth ambitions.”